A Belated January Finish - Double 4 Patch-ish

I pieced this quilt about 4 or 5 years ago.

It was supposed to be a Double 4 Patch,

but the pattern went a bit wrong ;o)

 It was going to be for my mother

as we'd bought the fabric together 

at the Harrogate Quilt show,

 but somehow the one I gave her instead seemed more suitable

so this one just lay around for a while,

even getting lost at one point!

But now it's quilted with a very cute panto 

that my friend Sio generously sent me.

This is the back which I pieced.

I bound it in the fabric that I had originally intended to back it with,

because somehow that large piece got used for another quilt! (Funny that lol)

I finished it last month,

but the weather as been too drab for a photo. 

Today however there was a ray of sun, 

so I ran out and took a photo!

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And these are a variation of my Coconut & Oat cookies.

Almonds or cherries stuck on top of the cookies 

just before going in the oven.

Love them with the cherries on top! Nom nom nom!

50 Blocks of Mystery

I've made 50 of the first block

of Bonnie's Celtic Solstice Mystery..

The good thing about being this behind on the mystery

is that I can make the parts as blocks and not just units :o)

 I find it's been coming together in fits and starts

as I don't always get time to sew...

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My furry friend likes to guard my quilts in progress...

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 This special baby quilt is only a few stitches away from being finished:

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My machine used for bag making

and was very poorly ;(

DH and I have learned so much from owning a longarm

and now repairing small sewing machines is a perk of the job ;o)

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My tree on a day that we had some sunshine.

In front of the tree you can see how wet the land is around here...

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 And Miss-Kalico with her plaster cast!

She fell of a chair and refused to walk on it

so we had to get her checked out .

Long story, but thankfully she's ok

and must have just sprained her ankle.

But when they couldn't find anything wrong they put a cast on.

24hours in a cast and she was desperate to walk lol

Wordless Wednesday - Banana Bread

Coconut Oat Cookies

COCONUT & OAT COOKIES

I make these with Gluten-Free Flour

and Gluten-Free Oats 

(and a teaspoon Xantham Gum!)

INGREDIENTS

315 g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarb

1 teaspoon salt

200 g caster sugar

220 g soft brown sugar

225 g unsalted butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

160 g porridge oats

150 g dessicated coconut

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade (Gas 4)

Lightly grease baking trays or use parchment paper

Sieve flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

In another bowl cream butter and sugars together. 

Beat in egg and vanilla. 

Add flour mixture and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. 

Stir in oats and coconut.

Shape dough into balls and place on prepared baking trays.

Bake at 180 c/ gas 4 for 12-15 minutes.

ENJOY!

The recipe was from allrecipes.com

I found the recipe on my tablet, 

but when I tried to find it on the desktop computer

the ingredients were different so I wrote them out 

and am posting them here to refer to again as these biscuits are fabulous!!!

Super-Sized Jared Takes A Wife - Finished for January

This quilt has been finished for a while,

but it feels like it has rained almost all of January!

In the end I'd thought I risk a photo

in the mud and grey cloud because at least it wasn't raining!

Of course it's King-size so getting a photo was tricky anyway...

But a few fallen logs came in handy...

The back is pieced 

and ended up being almost as much work as the front!

A close-up of the back:

And a close up of the quilting:

The pattern is one of Bonnie Hunter's.

'Jared takes a Wife' can be found under Bonnie's free pattern section.

I super-sized the blocks so each block measures about 24"

 And to prove the lengths I go to to get a photo...

Muddy boots, muddy trousers...

(and muddy quilt,but I planned towash it anyway before gifting it away!)

Amazing What You Find...

... when you tidy your studio!

This book called 'Needlework Economies'

is an absolute gem:

Very old...

Re-sold at Foyles in London...

and in it's day, perhaps very useful,

if say you needed new underwear:

Or you were going to mend a hole in your stockings (What!!)

Mending your man's shirt would have come in handy then!?!:

And you and your friend

could get a measure of each other:

A photo shows 'a girl wearing the frock she made'.

She must have been very proud....

The back has an advert for Fry's Cocoa

and a slogan 'The Pursuit of Health'.

Cocoa? Health?

 Can't be high up on the healthy lifestyle scale. Can it? ;o)

Wordless Wednesday - Quilted!

Raspberry Skirts

When saving these photos to the boys computer

I had to think of a name for the folder...

Raspberry Skirts because,

Well because I made Miss-Kalico a few skirts of late

(another distraction)

 Love this baby-cord fabric, so easy to sew up!

(There's another skirt with roses (of course!), photos to follow...)

And I made these yummy scrummy Coconut & Raspberry biscuits

(mine are on the right and the photo from the book on the left

I used the wrong coconut, but they were so so good nonetheless!)

 From my favourite Gluten free Cook Book:

Over 10 years of being Gluten-Free

and this is still my favourite recipe book!

*****

Miss-Kalico loves her pom-pom

jumper knitted by Vicky!

And it looks great with her new skirt ;o)

And I love this new pantograph for my Longarm that a friend sent me!

I know I should be doing quilting freehand, 

but this is so cute and so easy,

it's like doing it freehand ;o)

Wordless Wednesday - Borders

Like Sudoku, but not quite

Our sofa isn't normally so laden with quilts,

but I am sewing the binding down on a king size quilt

that got plopped on the sofa on top of another quilt for some reason....

 and when I came back to it,

a certain furry person had made herself very comfortable!

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Story Time Stars by Bonnie Hunter:

This is the top so far for my friend's first grandchild.

I'm loving the colours and the spots and stars.

The fact that putting it together was like playing Soduku

was not so easy for my little brain!

In the end I had to call in reinforcements.

There are 16 blocks. Each centre is repeated twice. 

There are 4 colours for the stars, 

but each block only uses a combination of 3 of the colours...

and that's where it all started getting confusing for me.

After about an hour and a half of shuffling blocks around we were happy

(a layout normally only takes me a few minutes!)

Now for the borders which are already cut

and thankfully require no more brain strain :o)

***

On another note,

I had to go around to a friend in the village

to borrow some pins to put this quilt together.

It was still early, but very dark

as our village has no street lights...

As I walked home just with my torch,

I thought to myself that I have probably watched

far too many of these murder stories 

set in quaint English villages for my liking!!!

Baby Quilts

I am currently making a baby quilt for a friend's first Grandchild.

We decided on Bonnie's Story-Time Stars

 I've made the blocks using very cute novelty fabrics

and will get to work on the sashings 

as soon as a bit of fabric arrives.

(You can see our 'new view' in the above picture

and we are just loving all the light from the bungalow's many large windows)

♥ ♥ ♥

 On the subject of baby's and quilts...

Look at this gorgeous baby on the quilt I made him!

♥ ♥ ♥

What I sent - SSCS 2013

Of course the photos of what I sent Chookyblue

are on my dead laptop, but she kindly blogged about it here:

http://chookyblue.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/secret-santa-christmas-swap-2013-sent.html

So if you want to see what I sent click on the link.

I do love a good swap...

I even come out of hiding...

Have a good stretch....

and get sewing! :)